Winged Victory

A new home thoughtfully divided by artful geometry

In Berkeley and Oakland, California, where a fire destroyed thousands of houses in 1991, the replacements haven't always been improvements: Some owners, with newly treeless lots and large insurance settlements, put up shapeless behemoths. With this house, high up in the fire zone, architect David Wilson took a very different approach.

Wilson divided the building into two sections -- one containing a living room, a dining room and a kitchen, the other the bedrooms and bathrooms -- joined by a 32-foot-long glass corridor. By separating the parts of the house, he ensured not just that it wouldn't look bulky, but that being inside the house would feel surprisingly like being outside, with bits of the striking exterior always in view. And the glass corridor would turn the backyard into an outdoor room with the same dramatic views of San Francisco as the front yard. The owners can sit out back, in their sheltered hot tub, and see city lights twinkling in the distance.

Longtime Bostonians, these new Californians moved west in 2004. The lives they were shedding included traditional New England architecture. When they saw a house by Wilson on the market, the wife recalls, "we knew we had to have it." So refreshing was their experience of living in what she calls "a knicknack-free zone" that after a few years they decided to have Wilson design this place just for them. While the first house was contemporary, it had some traditional details, the architect says. This time, the couple encouraged him to go all out.

The living room wing, as large as some houses (1,400 square feet) and twice as high (18 feet), could have felt overwhelming. Wilson was determined to divide it into zones with individual identities. In the living room itself, he chose to "raise the emotional temperature" with walls of integrally colored plaster. After agreeing to his choice of a deep blue, "we held our breath," the wife reports. (Luckily, she and her husband call the color Wilson chose "perfect.")

Designer Brian Ogan helped the couple choose furniture that reinforced the architecture -- including sofas with low backs, so the fireplace (part of a wood, metal and concrete wall by Wilson) is visible from the dining table. Above the table, a Prandina "chandelier" in the form of a gently curved glass tube punctuates the view.

For the ceiling, Wilson decided on bamboo, both for its warm appearance and for its sound-absorbing qualities (essential in a house with concrete floors and floor-to-ceiling windows). Two-by-four-foot bamboo panels were machine-grooved into eight-inch squares; he was determined that every speaker, sprinkler, light fixture and sensor would land in the center of a square. That meant the clients had to pick precise locations for furniture and lights before Wilson could finalize the ceiling plan. "There was a lot of tape on the floor," recalls the wife. For Wilson, the ceiling, with exposed hardware that adds further geometric complexity, was just one of many challenges. In a typical house, he says, "there may be one or two elements that we take to a 'furniture level' of detail. Here, nearly every element required that level of precision."

The environment, local and global, was never far from the architect's mind. True, the house requires more energy to heat and cool than it would have were its rooms huddled together in a single volume (because a house divided has more surface area). But Wilson and the owners incorporated a number of energy-saving features. In winter, solar energy warms the house's "thermal mass" -- its plaster walls and concrete floors; at night, that warmth circulates through the 4,000-square-foot house, reducing the load on its heating system. It helps, too, that the walls are filled with cellulose insulation, "a very green product," says Wilson.

Far more complex is the house's geothermal system, consisting of six tubes that loop 280 feet below the driveway. Water pumped through the tubes emerges at around 62 degrees, perfect for heating or cooling, depending on the season. There are also two solar energy systems arrayed on the roof: Photovoltaic panels provide 30 to 40 percent of the home's electricity, and glass collectors heat water for the house (including the radiant heating system in the concrete floors) as well as for the pool and the hot tub.

As for the immediate environment, Wilson was also the landscape designer. The clients aren't gardeners, he says, so he decided to avoid fussy flower beds in favor of "big moves," rows of grasses that, with their simple repetition, seem almost agricultural. By giving the landscape a rigorous geometry, he was able to ensure that the surroundings would be as architecturally compelling as the house itself, and that plantings wouldn't interrupt views of -- and through -- the building.

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In the master bathroom, Wilson envisioned a countertop and shower bench that merged into a single unit; for that, he chose concrete, a material that can form almost any shape. The piece wasn't fabricated until everything it would touch (including glass partitions and even wooden drawers) was finished and in place. Then Concreteworks, an Oakland company, made paper templates on the site. The templates were used to produce a wooden mold. Before the mold was filled, Concreteworks made color samples for Wilson and his clients; concrete can come in almost any shade, and pebbles, shells or recycled glass can be added to the mix, multiplying the choices. The molding process is tricky: If a pebble finds it way to a corner, it can prevent concrete from filling the entire mold. It's no wonder, Wilson says, that even the most experienced fabricators sometimes throw pieces away and start over, which is one reason custom concrete components are pricey.

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